


The answers could be relatively easy

by mrs_laugh_track



Category: Professional Wrestling
Genre: Background Candice/Johnny and Johnny/Tommaso, F/M, Kayfabe Compliant, implied candice/johnny/tommaso and chuck/candice/johnny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 10:49:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13269885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_laugh_track/pseuds/mrs_laugh_track
Summary: November 16th 2016, DIY wins the NXT Tag Team Championship. Chuck is watching with Candice. Months later everything has fallen apart. Once again, Chuck is there.Lots of sad feelings, a few not sad feelings and a even little bit of kissing. Hell yeah.





	The answers could be relatively easy

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Relatively Easy by Jason Isbell. Hot tip: If you're writing Chuck Taylor fic listen to alt-country when you do it.
> 
> Beta by the irreplaceable Veroniques

_November 16th 2016_

There’d been a bunch of people over to watch the show, but they’d all left. Everyone but Chuck. 

“I saw you crying,” she smiles and pokes him in the side with her foot. 

“Everybody was crying!” Chuck exaggeratedly rubs his side.

Everybody had not been crying. Some fuckers are immune to magic apparently. 

“Gimme another beer Chuckie”

He holds one just out of reach of her short little arms. She glares until he finally hands it over. 

It’s nice. 

Johnny and Tommaso FaceTime in. They’re smiling and exhausted and their shiny new belts are prominently in frame. 

Candice shrieks with joy. Chuck rolls his eyes and gives them a golf clap with all the sarcasm he can manage to muster in the moment.

Chuck then watches with fucking alarm as Johnny joyously kisses Tommaso right on his mouth. With tongue. 

“Is this… a thing you do?”

Candice laughs. Johnny laughs. Tommaso doesn’t laugh, thank god. Chuck is processing a lot and giggly psycho killers might actually tip him over the edge.

Chuck considers himself a man of the world, okay. But his brain can’t quite catch up with this. John boy doesn’t drink and doesn’t cuss, but he kisses dudes in front of his wife. Sure. Candice is basically a sailor on both fronts though, so maybe this is John just trying his best to be as cool as her. 

Chuck tries not to be bitter about Johnny never kissing him when they won tag titles together, but there’s only so much shit he can not be bitter about at one time. 

“Okay okay I got it, I’m the dumbass redneck square. Have fun at your next key party.”

Johnny turns to Tommaso and beams, “He means he’s happy for us.”

Chuck doesn’t know if he means about the title win or about the fact that they’re sucking each other’s dicks. He gives them a thumbs up.

Candice and Johnny gush at each other for a while about how happy and proud and blah blah blah they are. She can’t wait till he gets home. She hasn’t seen Moana yet, she’s waiting to see it with him. 

Chuck hates them a little bit. He loves them a lot more. 

“I thought I was done for guys,” Johnny is smiling but his eyes are a million miles away. “It wouldn’t have been the first time they made me tap.” 

“I wasn’t worried,” Tommaso says. And Johnny smiles for real.

The longer the call keeps going the more Chuck feels like he shouldn’t be there. He’s not part of this. Why is he on their couch where they probably make pillow forts and have lightsaber fights and apparently all bang. He tells himself not to think about them all banging, but it’s too late. Why is Candice ruffling his hair and laughing so loudly? Why is she trying to pretend it makes sense for him to be here on this call?

He shoulda gone home when everyone else did. They only reason he stayed was that… well, because he had wanted to. But he’d signed on for a night hanging out with Candice, not whatever weirdo sentimental victory celebration love fest he’s been roped into. Maybe he should have seen it coming. He smiles real big, tries not to talk over anyone and eventually, mercifully, the call ends.

It’s all awkward now though. Quiet. 

Candice leans forward and puts her hands on her knees. “Sometimes I worry about him,” she says like a confession. Like it was something shocking. It’s nice, Chuck thinks, that Candice saw Johnny and thought he usually wasn’t someone to worry over. Tommaso too apparently. Two of the scariest people Chuck’s ever seen inside a ring and both of them just accept that John can handle himself. That he can win or lose and not fall apart. Chuck’s known Johnny longer than either of them though. 

Chuck doesn’t want to tell Candice that. She picked him to say this to and that makes Chuck’s skin itch just to think about, but he knows it means he has to pull it together and try to say something comforting. “What’s there to worry about? He’s a WWF champion. He’s got a super hot wife and an okay hot… I don’t know, boyfriend? Is that what I say here? This is new to me. But come on, he’s got the world at his tiny feet.” 

Candice frowns and kind of tucks her head on Chuck’s chest. All he can see is a field of platinum blonde. 

Does Candice want to kiss him? Is he supposed to kiss her? Did she orchestrate this whole thing as some kind of kissing lure? It doesn’t make sense. 

He stops knowing what to do with his hands. He kind of pats her head, kind of caresses it. 

“Hey Corn Dawg. I worry about him too.”

“Thanks Chuck.”

Chuck disentangles himself from her and claims sleepiness. He’s got a long drive tomorrow. Which is completely true, but also bullshit.

“I’m pretty wired still from the win. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to sleep for a while. I’m gonna make you some cinnamon rolls for the morning, okay?”

Chuck drifts off listening to the sounds of her puttering around their perfect little kitchen. He thinks about going to kiss her. He doesn’t kiss her.

_7 months later_

“This stupid house feels too big now.” 

Candice is rearranging things endlessly. Johnny’s at the gym. The last month or so it’s seemed like every time Chuck has tried to text him or call him or get a response to an exceptionally good tweet, he’s been at the gym. Chuck got into town a few days ago, but it feels like he’s barely seen him. 

Florida sucks. It’s too hot and his friends are super sad right now. He guesses he doesn’t regret coming though.

Chuck is helping Candice. Mostly by somewhat arbitrarily saying things like “that looks good there” or “are you kidding me with that shit that plant is gonna die of embarrassment.” 

He knows all the cleaning and moving shit is a metaphor or whatever. He’s not some dumb Trent out here. He just doesn’t know how you’re supposed to respond also in metaphor. 

He’s fussing with one of his shoes when he hears the sound of glass shattering. Chuck fights through the urge to ignore it and goes to investigate. 

Candice has thrown a framed picture of Johnny and Tommaso with their belts across the room. 

She’s sitting on the floor. “I should have thrown it away a month ago you know? But I just thought Johnny looks so handsome and it’s just, it’s not fair. It’s not fair we have to be the ones to get rid of things. He shouldn’t be able to take away things that already happened.”

She looks very much like she wants to find something else to throw. 

Chuck crouches down next to her, “Do you uh, want me to leave the glass there?”

Candice twists her mouth into a scowl, but starts to laugh. She stretches out onto her back.

“Come lay on the floor with me, doofus.” 

He lays down next to her. “This feels very high school.”

“Yeah like we’re cutting an assembly.”

“Fuck a pep rally. I don’t give a rip about a pep rally.”

He reaches out and covers her hand with his. He’s not a good friend. He’s never been a good friend. But shit, he hasn’t turned on Trent yet. That’s something, right?

“Chuck is it okay… Will you kiss me?”

And maybe he shouldn’t. She’s about a hundred kinds of fucked up right now. He’s wanted this forever. Maybe the two of them can just take him home. Hell, put him in Tommaso’s old room. He’s always been a bad friend. She smells incredible. 

He kisses her. 

She rolls on top of him and they make out slow and easy, like maybe it really is high school. Like they haven’t endured all the years of getting their hearts and bodies broken. 

Chuck is pretty sure they wouldn’t have been friends in high school. 

He all but throws Candice off him when he hears Johnny open the door. Stupid. 

Johnny looks them up and down. Chuck fights the urge to try and fix his hair so it doesn’t look like someone’s had their hands in it. Johnny smiles, it’s small, but it’s the most Chuck has seen him smile since he got into town. 

“Hey...I gotta shower. Before you keep going you might want to pick up the glass.”

Before you keep going. They’re gonna keep going. Chuck starts giggling and can’t stop. Candice kisses him again. They don’t pick up the glass.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to part of a series of stories where Chuck Taylor is a coward who chickens out of kissing people, but then I wrote the first bit and was like oh shit... what if later they DID kiss?
> 
> I still might write the other ones. Who's to say.


End file.
